The invention relates to an air cargo container comprising a rectangular, planar bottom side for accommodating a transported product, a rectangular, planar top side, and at least four connecting profiles.
Diverse embodiments of air cargo containers are known from the prior art and are used, in general, to transport large quantities of parcels, luggage, cargo, packages, or other transportable goods, which are bundled in large units as transported products for transport in aircraft. In technical jargon, air cargo containers are referred to as unit load devices (ULD), and are designed as pallets or containers. A ULD container is typically designed as a closed container made of aluminum sheets having a profiled frame or are made of a combination of an aluminum frame having plastic walls. The products to be transported or conveyed are loaded and unloaded into and out of the ULD container through a closable opening. Given that a plurality of individual transported products are transported in a ULD container by being bundled into units, the overall number of individual parcels to be loaded into and unloaded from the aircraft is reduced, thereby saving time and effort and reducing the number of ground personnel required.
Due to aviation safety requirements, which are generally very strict, ULD containers must be certified for a certain type of aircraft. In this regard, certain container types have been developed, which differ in terms of the dimensions, the volume that can be transported in the container, and the aircraft type for which the container is certified. It is very difficult to make modifications to existing, certified container types, since a new certification process must be carried out for nearly every change. This is also why it is not possible to use just any type of specially modified and/or constructed air cargo containers depending on the particular transport volume and transport weight. In practical applications, however, this results—not infrequently—in situations in which containers that are only partially loaded are transported by aircraft. Such unfortunate situations are made that must worse, however, given that the transport costs are calculated not only according to weight, but also according to the volume that is transported, wherein said volume is based on the volume of the air cargo container and not on the volume of the transported product.
Another problem that results from air cargo containers being only partially filled is that the existing possibilities are insufficient for particularly effectively securing transported products, which are transported in the air cargo container, against damage from sliding or falling over during the flight. In addition, transported products exist that can be stacked on top of one another only under certain conditions, or that absolutely must be separated from other transported products during shipment. Intermediate bases that are fixedly installed in air cargo containers are not an effective solution for this problem, however, since the intermediate bases make it impossible to transport large-volume products.